REPORT:Military investigating judge issues arrest warrants against 2 members from Arsal

              
Military Investigating Judge Fadi Sawwan issued on Wednesday 2 arrest warrants against Mostafa Ali Hjairy and Hassan Mohammad Hjairy on charges of involvement in the Arsal incident.                       

LAF troops were ambushed in Arsal on Friday February 1st, 2013, while trying to detain fugitive, Khaled Hmeid, suspected of involvement in the 2011 kidnapping of seven Estonian tourists who were abducted in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley and held for nearly four months before being released in July that year.                  

Some security officials have said that Hmeid crossed the border into Syria over the past months to fight with rebels trying to depose Syrian President Bashar Assad. Many in Arsal, a Sunni Muslim town, are sympathetic to Syrian rebels even as fears of a Syrian spillover are mounting in Lebanon; a country that has adopted a dissociation policy toward its neighbour’s internal violence.                              

Khaled Hmeid was injured in the raid and subsequently succumbed to his wounds. Shortly after his capture around 80 gunmen adamant on avenging Hmeid's capture followed the LAF troops who reportedly were stuck on the road leading out of the town due to the accumulation of snow. The gunmen attacked the troops leaving Major Pierre Bachaalany and Adjutant Ibrahim Zahraman for dead. The two were then taken alongside the remaining injured troops to the towns municipality and paraded in a show of celebration.                

LBCI showed photographs of uniformed soldiers being held in the municipality building in Arsal. Some of the soldiers had bruises, and others were bloody. Some residents in Arsal have said that the troops who were ambushed were in civilian clothes and using civilian cars. They said they believed they were pro-government Syrian militiamen who crossed the border from Syria to capture Hmeid.                   

The death of the two soldiers have stirred the emotions of Lebanese Army supporters leading many to cut off roads and burn tires as a reaction to the crime.           
The Lebanese Army has since imposed strict measures around the Bekaa town, leading to the discontent of some MPs and locals who insist that the measures are baseless and unwarranted.


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